


Two Years

by SiriuslySherlocked



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Depression, Grief/Mourning, Grieving John, Hurt John Watson, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Lightly implied suicidal thoughts, M/M, Minor Mary Morstan/John Watson, Post-Reichenbach, Sherlock's "suicide"
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-08 17:46:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19873582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SiriuslySherlocked/pseuds/SiriuslySherlocked
Summary: John still isn't over Sherlock's death. Even after two years.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, I wanted to try some angsty Johnlock. I'm really not sure where this story is going, because I hardly ever write multi-chapter fics, and I'm also very bad at finishing them so... don't get too attached lol. But, yeah. So, idk, this exists.

John would never admit that after two years, he still thought about Sherlock practically every minute of the day.

He'd never admit that when he came home from work every day, returning to the flat that he now lived in all alone, he would always take a moment to look into Sherlock's old bedroom, and it never failed to leave a lump in his throat.

He'd never admit that Sherlock still kept him awake at night, his mind replaying the memory of watching Sherlock jump off that building over and over again.

Getting out of that car and looking up to see Sherlock standing at the top of the building. He hadn't thought too much of it after the first moment-- he was used to Sherlock doing weird things. But once Sherlock had begun speaking, John could hear through the cellphone that his voice was shaky with tears. Being told it was all a lie. He still didn't believe it to this very day. He truthfully couldn't remember the entire speech, but he would never forget the end.

_"This phone call... it's my note. Goodbye, John."_

And he jumped. John shouted his name but it was too late. He watched his best friend tumble to the ground, had seen the dead body for himself, Sherlock covered in blood, no pulse, no nothing. That was two years ago.

And he'd never admit to anyone just how many times he'd cried himself to sleep since then.

And then he met Mary, and finally, there was a bit of light in his world again. Mary made him happy. She was so quirky, not afraid to speak the truth to him; she could always make him smile. For once, there were finally some moments where he could forget about what happened two years ago, focus on the moment, focus on his life right then and there. It was nice. But then, he'd go home after dinner, and maybe take Mary with him, but either way, he'd still see Sherlock's empty room, and he felt off for the rest of the night. It was impossible not to remember Sherlock, especially when you shared a flat with him. John would think of him every time he saw his bedroom door, every time he made himself tea, every time he opened his laptop, every time he opened the refrigerator and there were no body parts in it. Oh, the body parts. No more jump scares when he opened the door to find a severed head staring back at him when all he had wanted was a glass of milk. Now he could get a glass of milk just fine. No more laundry strewn all around the floor. No more experiments littering the place. No more dishes piled up in the sink. No more violin music. He especially missed the violin music. Most of the time Sherlock would play at the most inconvenient times and John would find it annoying. Now it felt very odd to have a full night's sleep, with no violin to wake him up, or random gunshots, or some other loud Sherlock thing to do. None of it. Everything was clean, quiet, and so unbearably empty, John's chest hurt at the very feel of the place. Two years. Anyone else would have moved on by now. And here he was, still acting like it just happened yesterday. It felt like it had just happened yesterday. He hardly recognized the time or the days going by. It was just like it had been before he had moved in with Sherlock. Boring, uneventful, time was meaningless because there was nothing to do or look forward to. Mary could distract him for a few hours, maybe even the night if they went back to her place instead of his, but it couldn't last forever. As much as John hated to admit it, Mary was beginning to feel like more of a substitution or a fill in, like a drug to briefly relieve his grief. He wished she wasn't. He liked her very much, had even thought about proposing to her, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized it was his own head forcing it on himself in an attempt to bury Sherlock from his mind. He wanted Mary to help him start over, to help him move on and have a happy life of his own without Sherlock, but he knew it wouldn't work, and it wouldn't be fair to Mary either. Nothing could replace the thrill and danger the cases had put them through. And no one could replace Sherlock.

He felt bad that he couldn't give Mary his full attention. Nearly every time they came from one of their dates they'd go to one of their homes and intend to have sex, but John could never get into it. Mary would ask him what was wrong, and he would say he just wasn't in the mood. But it was becoming a pattern. He was never in the mood anymore. Mary could steal him away for a little while, but in the midst of the bliss, Sherlock's dead body would appear in John's head and stay there until who knows when. He was almost certain Mary had put together why he couldn't get into it, but he didn't want to say it aloud, since it wouldn't quite sound right to say he couldn't get into the mood because he was too busy thinking about his best friend. It didn't matter. Eventually they'd just curl up on the bed and go to sleep, or, at least, Mary would. John didn't get to sleep for a very long time nowadays. He hadn't even realized he was depressed until Mary had brought it up to him and insisted he get a therapist. He had had one before he met Sherlock. And then when he met Sherlock he didn't need one anymore.

He hadn't realized that he was hardly eating anymore. That he had hardly any interest in work, or his blog, or anything, really. He slept a lot more. Not at night when he needed to, though; that would have been too easy. But he liked sleep. It was such a good time user. Like a portal, some kind of time travel, where time was used up but there didn't have to be any thinking involved, besides perhaps a dream or two. And although John did have dreams about Sherlock from time to time, he didn't have to think about him nearly as much as he did when he was awake. It was like everything reminded him of Sherlock in some way or another. Even the goddamn bed sheets. They reminded him of the time in Buckingham Palace when Sherlock had refused to dress into anything more appropriate than a bed sheet. The memory still made him smile, although it was bittersweet. He missed Sherlock's ridiculousness. His sass, his conceit, his brilliance, his nerve. He even missed Sherlock being an arsehole.

There was another thing stopping him from proposing to Mary. The wedding. Sherlock wouldn't be at the wedding. He had planned for a long time, even before he had any chance of getting married, that he wanted Sherlock to be his best man. And maybe even the godfather of his child, someday. But he was afraid that just the sight of Sherlock _not_ being there would ruin his mood for his own wedding, and that wasn't fair to himself or to Mary. Besides, who would he invite anyway, other than his family? He hardly had any other friends. Mike, he supposed. And perhaps Greg, Molly, Mrs. Hudson, maybe even Mycroft. All people he had met through Sherlock, and the one person who was the reason he had met Sherlock himself.

This pain was going to afflict him for the rest of his life, wasn't it? It had already been two years and no progress had been made. He had a gloomy, lonely, and miserable life ahead of him. It was just like his life before he met Sherlock. Boring, meaningless, nothing to do, no one to talk to. But now with the added grief of losing the best friend he had ever had, of losing the best _life_ he had ever had. And after all of that, was there really any point in living at all?


	2. Chapter Two

Finally, tonight was a night that John wasn't thinking about Sherlock at all. It was only he and Mary, at a restaurant he had never been to before. This was a night that had absolutely no association with Sherlock Holmes and nothing to remind John of him. That was why he loved having Mary, even if she didn't quite cure the grief completely. She was detached from his past life. She hadn't known Sherlock, she had nothing to do with their cases, and he had met her all on his own. And John had made up his mind that he was going to move on, for real, he was going to let go of his past and make a new life for himself, accept a new future, and he would move on from his past. So, that was why he had planned tonight to propose to Mary. Yes, a tiny, lingering thought in his mind jabbed at him and said Mary wouldn't help, but he pushed it aside. He had to try. He was going to _make_ it work. And he hoped that the first step to really trying was this.

He was sitting across from Mary, waiting for someone to come by and take their orders. She was rambling about some experience she had with a rude person on the sidewalk, but John wasn't really listening. He was just sitting there, smiling at her, thinking about his plan to propose. He fiddled with the box in his pocket that contained the ring, wondering when he should do it.

"And he saw I wasn't joking, and he ran off. I didn't even have to actually do anything!" Mary finished with a laugh.

"Ha, yeah, you're tougher than you look," John said, grinning. "But, er... so I have something I wanted to say..."

But of course, just then the waiter came to take their drink orders. "Anyzing for da man wid da lovely date?" The man said with a heavy French accent.

"Ah, what would you recommend?" John said, not focused on what he would be drinking, and really on how to continue with this proposal.

"Definitely za champagne here," the man said, pointing to the menu. "It iz... full of surprises, say, za feeling of a familiar faze..."

"Mhm, sure, I'll take that one then," John said absentmindedly.

"Vairy good choice, sir," the waiter said, and John really wished he would just go away.

"Yes, could you go ahead and get started on those-- please..." he had looked up at the waiter, who had taken his glasses off, dipped a napkin in Mary's water glass, and was now rubbing his mustache away.

"Does yours rub off too?" The man asked casually, checking his finger to see how much of the marker he had succeeded in getting off.

John knew that face clear as day. Why, _why now_? Not when he was trying to propose. Why did he have to remember him now? He shut his eyes, willing his hallucination to go away. "No, no, no," he mumbled to himself, rubbing his temples. "Not now. Not right now."

But he soon realized that Mary was looking up at the man in shock too. He looked over at her incredulously, his eyes wide. "You see him too?" He whispered breathlessly, and Mary nodded slowly.

"Well I should be surprised if you _didn't_ see me, considering I'm right here, unless you've gone blind without my awareness," Sherlock said, interrupting John's thoughts. John looked up at him again, his eyes still wide, and he slowly reached out and touched his arm. He was really there. Sherlock was really there.

"Y-you're..." he stuttered, his voice shaky, still convinced he was under some very realistic dream or vision.

Sherlock grinned. "Oh yes. I am very much alive, and doing wonderfully I might add. Better than you, obviously, I pity you for whatever crisis caused you to grow _that._ "

Now John was angry. He was very, _very_ angry. He shot up to his feet, his face inches away from Sherlock's, his facial expression dangerous. "Two years," he said, in a shaky whisper that was almost more threatening then yelling. "Two _bloody_ years. And you've been alive this _entire_ time."

"Correct," Sherlock said, absently trying to get more of his mustache off.

"Do you _know_ ," John said dangerously, "what I have GONE THROUGH?!"

"I'm sure it's been plenty, but I see you've moved on," Sherlock said, nodding to Mary. 

"NO! NO I HAVEN'T! ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?! I HAVEN'T MOVED ON AFTER TWO FUCKING YEARS AND NO MATTER HOW HARD I TRY YOU WON'T GET OUT OF MY HEAD!" John screamed.

Sherlock paused for a moment, but his infuriating grin returned milliseconds later. "How touching, but you've found someone new."

"IT DOESN'T MATTER!" John screeched. "Do you know how messed up I am? When I first saw you just now I thought I was fucking hallucinating because I'm so messed up I didn't doubt it could happen!"

"Well all of us are messed up in our own ways--"

"BECAUSE OF _YOU!_ Because of your _"death--"_ John used exaggerated air quotes-- "I'm... I'm..."

What was he? He didn't know anymore. He felt like he hardly existed at all. He glanced at Mary, and realized he had just admitted that she was no help at all. He gave her an apologetic look, trying to communicate that he would talk to her later, and then turned back to Sherlock. "I don't know how you did it. And I don't care. I just want to know _why._ "

"It's rather complex," Sherlock said simply. "But the past is in the past. Right now I'd like to focus on getting rid of _that._ " He gestured to John's mustache.

John lost it.

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment! I love comments! Good, bad, I don't care, I'm just thirsty for comments lol.


End file.
